A Handful of Dice,
a Ruler, a Few Figurative Models, & Some Thoughts . . .
For want of a better introduction, I will begin this improvised as well as rushed post by citing the first two sentences of Chapter 4 in Adrian Goldsworthy’s 1996 study, The Roman Army At War 100 BC—AD 200. On page 116, the gentleman scholar (then a Research Fellow as the University of Wales Cardiff) explained: “The primary purpose of any army is to defeat the enemy in battle.” In the following sentence, he qualified his perfectly-obvious-to-many statement by remarking: “This is true, even if few of its soldiers ever experience battle directly.” As I floundered about in search of my next solo wargaming project, it occurred to me that I might take a brief break from publishing middle school-level wargame reports with perhaps too much emphasis or reliance on simple diagrams and try something else. Coincidentally or ironically, the small seed of an idea was discovered during the wargaming of one of those solo scenarios. Anyway, refocusing on the two sentences transcribed from the much dog-eared and heavily annotated paperback of what I think is an educational, engaging, and excellent work of reference, it occurred to me that ancient and medieval wargamers - no matter what their level of participation or tastes with regard to tabletop contests - would completely agree with the “primary purpose” statement. The second sentence is more interesting and provides more room for interpretation, at least in my estimation, so there will probably be more factions than just two or three main groups. For a starting point, it is difficult to imagine that many ancient or medieval wargamers would like to deploy their miniature armies or other representative forms of troop types and so forth on a tabletop, only to witness a percentage of these accumulated figures and formations actually participate in the pretend battle or game. I also suppose that those among us who can present (on occasion) as more stubborn or particular, could ask for further information pertaining to the definition of the words “few” and “directly.” Is there a percentage point or level at which “few” is no longer applicable? I would imagine that 50 percent is probably the knee-jerk or common sense answer here. But what does “directly” mean in this instance? Is this reserved for melees, regardless of duration or the enemy troop type, or does this word include situations wherein a unit is targeted by an enemy formation capable of throwing or shooting missiles at it? Then again, how would morale be handled in this particular case? That is to ask, would a friendly unit “directly experience” battle when a neighboring unit was attacked by enemy elephants and broken because of the impetuous and violent charge? Would this proximity apply if the routed friendly unit was a certain - but not overly great - distance from the unit that was not physically or directly involved with what was going on? Adopting the role of ‘devil’s advocate’ for just a moment, I wonder if this second sentence could be reinforced or proven wrong if an amateur historical survey and analysis was conducted? More specifically, and understanding that the following 15 battles represent just a very small sample set of the myriad contests and engagements taking place between 3,000 BC/BCE and 1500 AD/CE, I wonder if acceptable percentages of “few” could be found for: Gaugamela; The Sambre; Dorylaeum; Cynoscephalae; Poitiers; Callinicum; Zama; Kadesh; Plataea; Chalons; Montaperti; Hydaspes; Pharsalus; Arsuf, and Paraitakene. [The source of this list was Richard Lockwood’s “Battle Day 2018” brief, which was published in Slingshot 318 (May/June 2018).]
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Scanning and skimming the aforementioned familiar and valued Goldsworthy text, I stopped on page 150 and reread the following: “Given that often an army had stood facing the enemy for hours or even days, it is not surprising that the men were nervous and tense, and that such accidents could occur.” (The accident being referred to is the premature or ‘not specifically ordered’ advance by Caesar’s legions at Thapsus.) Now then, I have never set up a solo scenario and then proceeded to wait three or four hours before starting to play, so that I could replicate (at least in some small manner) the apparent ‘hurry up, deploy, and wait syndrome’ that affected quite a few ancient armies. Mentally reviewing the contents of five or so rulebooks, I can confidently say that I have never encountered any procedures or rules that attempted to recreate this extended interval of natural or increasing nerves and tension. I wonder if those individuals or select groups who identify themselves as the gatekeepers of historical realism in the hobby have drafted rule amendments to depict this pre-battle period? I wonder if there might be a simple way to develop a rule or two that would add this historical context and completely human element to a tabletop contest without over complicating things? For as much as I have thought about it - and I confess it adds up to less than 20 minutes - it occurs to me that both sides might roll 3d6 and then compare the totals. If one side has a better score by 1 to 6 points, then that side receives an automatic re-roll or a positive modifier to be employed in any situation they choose. This bonus or reward could, perhaps, reflect a lesser amount of nerves and tension. A score of 7 to 12 would result in two re-rolls or situations in which a positive modifier may be used. Differences of 13 points of more between the opposing rolls of 3d6 would earn the winning side a fairly significant advantage of three re-rolls and or positive modifiers to use in situations that, initially, were not satisfactory. This draft procedure could generously be called ‘brain storming,’ aimed specifically at recreating that pre-battle period of nerves and tension. It occurs to me that other sets of rules may have addressed this, to some extent, through scouting or something similar, but again, I am not aware of any particular set of rules for ancient wargaming that covers this natural human emotional response when lined up for battle with thousands of men to your left and right, facing thousands of enemy approximately 400-600 meters away, waiting on orders to bring your day and life to a horribly violent as well as terribly painful end.
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It appears that one could trace the genealogy of the demoralization rules provided on pages 5-6 of GRAND TRIUMPH! [Rough Draft - Version 0.2, October 2017] back to page 25 of the De Bellis Multitudinis rules written by Phil Barker and Richard Bodley Scott [Version 1.1, June 1994]. To be certain, I have more experience with the former set than with the latter, and this ‘introduction’ or transition to another section of this unplanned and no-outline-prepared-and-revised post should not be perceived as an attack, dig, or slight. I confess that I am curious though, about the origin of the ‘third’ and ‘50 percent’ rules. Were these increments decided upon because of ample historical evidence, or are they simply game mechanisms, designed for simplicity and playability?
I wonder if there might be some way, without getting too complicated (understanding that this is a subjective assessment) of combining existing historical information with the game procedures under present examination. Phrased another way, why would a command, division, or group of veteran troops become demoralized after suffering the same number of casualties, losses, degradation points, or whatever it might be called, as a command, division, or group of levy or militia troops? Stipulating to a degree of bias, it seems to me that the veterans should perform better and be able to fight harder and longer than a collection of militia units led by inexperienced officers.
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In a previous draft of this post (it was more like 45 minutes of jittery typing after consuming too much dark chocolate), I took a sudden interest in how various rulebooks handled victory and defeat on the tabletop. Very broadly speaking, and acknowledging that my very informal survey looked at six - maybe - sets of rules, it seemed that the general rule or accepted form was that a side or an army has lost the tabletop battle once it has lost 50 percent of its original strength. Again, I pondered the historical accuracy of this presumably general rule, and I considered the simplicity of it with regard to game design and play. I contemplated, briefly, undertaking a comparative study of the losses suffered by each side in the 15 historical engagements listed earlier. While not a sufficient sample size, this ‘study’ would give me some data with which to work or at least formulate new and better questions. The aforementioned sugar high led me to pull Professor Sabin’s excellent text, LOST BATTLES - Reconstructing the Great Clashes of the Ancient World, off a lower book shelf. (Neither the cover nor any of the pages were stained with chocolate fingerprints, and the valued reference book was carefully set aside for the next day when I would be in a clearer frame of mind.) Anyway, at the top of page 44, the accomplished academic reminds the reader of the fairly long list of battles and losses contained on page 12, explaining: “. . . these figures are usually highly asymmetric and include losses inflicted during the subsequent pursuit as well as during the fighting itself.” Having more questions than answers, I wondered if it might be possible to develop a table or something similar that showed the accepted or verifiable battle and post-battle losses suffered by each side for those 15 historical engagements that I keep referring to. This line (more like a squiggle) of thinking led me to wonder if there was a way to reflect or reproduce this on a wargaming tabletop, and what its merits and or drawbacks might be. Again, for as much as I have thought about this procedure or procedures, it occurs to me that it would be based more on morale than physical condition, though these two characteristics would not be completely divorced.
I wondered how such interactions might be governed and resolved on a tabletop. This ‘morale-heavy’ or ‘morale-oriented’ process seemed to fly in the face of traditional wargaming, where the understood objective is, to adapt the transcribed sentence that started this post: to defeat the opposing player-general’s miniature army through a combination of tactical acumen, rules knowledge, and better-than-average luck with the dice or cards employed to resolve combat and other situations.
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To avoid any possible confusion or opportunity for retribution, I would like to clearly state that I make no claim with regard to being the first to plant a flag on this figurative mountain. That would be beyond foolish and perhaps remind readers of the actions and or mind set of a certain current political figure. That hint of political commentary aside, demoralization (or demoralisation) of a command or group and the eventual collapse of the larger army are not wholly original subjects of discussion by ancient and medieval wargamers. In early April of 2024, Anthony Clipsom (aka Erpingham) started this thread on the ‘Rules Systems Discussions’ sub-forum on The Society of Ancients Forum: “Can you tell me please, who won?” Although his post was inspired by the report of a late fifteenth century historical refight (Fornovo - as recreated by the award-winning, indefatigable, and statistics wizard Jon Freitag) and the briefly attended conversation seemed more battle and medieval-centric, I found the gentleman’s ‘set questions’ at the end of his opening comment relatable, interesting, and worthy of a second or even third consideration. The long-time, respected, and prolific member of The Society asked:
Are we too gamey in our approach to winning and losing? Should we try to make
our battles revolve around something more substantial than proxies? Or, in fact,
are our gamey approaches a distillation of reality to simple terms - that battles
were won by knocking down the enemies will to combat to such a point where
their endurance gave way and they quit the field en masse?
Even though it has been just a little over a year since the gentleman raised these questions (concerns?), I think it is well worth revisiting and reconsidering them.
In December of that year and within the electronic marble columns of that same sub-forum, another long-standing member of The Society (and former editor of its long-running publication, whose tireless work was greatly appreciated) opened the following discussion: “How do you get to the end point of a wargame?” This veteran gentleman (aka Imperial Dave), who has an extensive library of rulebooks, provided forum frequenters with a short list of ‘mechanisms’ cataloged from said sets. These were: a time limit; a break point; objectives fulfilled; accumulation of points, and the common (but possessing an interesting history - this is my parenthetical addition) handshake.
To be certain, there is much food for thought here. Speaking with the experience of 30-plus years as a non-traditional historical wargamer, there is something to be said for the simple or simpler approach. There is no room for disagreement if your army breakpoint is determined to be six units, and through the application of greater tactical skill along with a bit of luck, your opponent has managed to destroy or rout those six units, well then, you have lost the game or battle. The extent to which this tabletop contest presented an accurate historical drama, picture, or reconstruction is, obviously, a matter of opinion. In my brief as well as hurried ‘research’ while typing and editing - ahem - this post (more or less ‘on the fly’), I could not find the desired “smoking gun” evidence or quote. However, it does seem correct to argue or comment that in ancient battles, the losing side lost more men and material after they had been broken and were being pursued by the victorious side, then they lost during the actual engagement. Following in the giant footsteps of Anthony, Dave, and many others, I am left to wonder how we might best depict this kind of interaction on a tabletop? I also wonder if we should, as too much historical realism might impact the enjoyment of the wargame. I confess that I am a bit worried too, as I fear that Professor Philip Sabin might have sufficiently addressed this challenging subject matter by stressing morale and cohesion in the rules he included in the previously mentioned text, LOST BATTLES.
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On cursory review of this rushed-into-production post, it appears fairly evident why I should stay within my delineated comfort zone of writing battle reports, non-traditional and simplistic though they may be.
